"John Pinkerton next, and I'm truly concerned I can't call that worthy so candid as learned; He railed at the plaid, and blasphemed the claymore, And set Scots by the ears in his one volume more. One volume more, my friends, one volume more-- Celt and Goth shall be pleased with one volume more.
As bitter as gall, and as sharp as a razor, And feeding on herbs as a Nebuchadnezzar, His diet too acid, his temper too sour, Little Ritson came out with his two volumes more. But one volume, my friends, one volume more-- We'll dine on roast beef, and print one volume more."
I am tempted to add a word or two of prosaic gossip and comment to the characteristics thus so happily hit off in verse. John Pinkerton was, upon the whole, a man of simple character. The simplicity consisted in the thorough belief that never, in any country or at any period of the world's history, had there been created a human being destined to be endowed with even an approach to the genius, wisdom, and learning of which he was himself possessed. He never said a word in praise of any fellow-being, for none had ever risen so much above the wretched level of the stupid world he looked down upon as to deserve such a distinction. He condescended, however, to distribute censure, and that with considerable liberality. For instance, take his condensed notice of an unfortunate worker in his own field, Walter Goodal, whose works are "fraught with furious railing, contemptible scurrility, low prejudice, small reading, and vulgar error." Thus having dealt with an unfortunate and rather obscure author, he shows his impartiality by dealing with Macpherson, then in the zenith of his fame, in this wise: "His etymological nonsense he assists with gross falsehoods, and pretends to skill in the Celtic without quoting one single MS. In short, he deals wholly in assertion and opinion, and it is clear that he had not even an idea what learning and science are." Nor less emphatic is his railing at the plaid and blaspheming at the claymore. Donald and his brethren are thus described: "Being mere savages, but one degree above brutes, they remain still in much the same state of society as in the days of Julius Cæsar; and he who travels among the Scottish Highlanders, the old Welsh, or wild Irish, may see at once the ancient and modern state of women among the Celts, when he beholds these savages stretched in their huts, and their poor women toiling like beasts of burden for their unmanly husbands;" and finally, "being absolute savages, and, like Indians and negroes, will ever continue so, all we can do is to plant colonies among them, and by this, and encouraging their emigration, try to get rid of the breed."